If you recognize it - I don't own it.

Important message after long awaited chapter. Enjoy.


-Chapter Fifteen-


"Now entering the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy." Andromeda's voice said, the blue strings of slipstream disappearing as the closest planet, Pluto, came into view. "The Eureka Maru has left its docking bay and is hailing us."

"On screen." Dylan said, feeling at home on his ships command deck, even if it was empty aside from him.

"Dylan, are you sure about this?" Beka asked worriedly. "I understand letting the crew go back to Tarazed in the slip fighters with Rhade, and letting Harper go to his-" she paused for a second, thinking. "What did he call it again?"

"His 'Once - in - a - life - time - I - must - go - or - I'll - go - on - strike' Surfing trip." Dylan answered, using Mr. Harper's exact words.

"Right - that." Beka said, chuckling though she quickly sobered. "But now you're all alone! Not even Rommie's there with you. I don't have to take this vacation, you know." she said, trying to talk some sense into the man. What if he got ambushed? What if he got attacked? Knowing his luck, it wasn't a 'what if?', but more like a 'when'.

"Relax Beka. I promised you a three week vacation last month, remember?" Beka nodded. "Exactly, so enjoy yourself, go visit the casinos near Jupiter, and stop worrying about me. I'm not that old."

"But -"

"Rommie has her rendezvous point set for next week. She only went down to make sure Harper and Trance don't get into to much trouble. I'm sure I can survive without a babysitter for a week Beka." Dylan said, raising an eyebrow when the pilot opened her mouth again.

"I know but-"

"Beka?" Dylan interrupted again, Beka visibly taking a slow, deep calming breath before nodding her head for her captain to continue. "Go. Captain's order."

Pausing to glare at the visual, she nodded stiffly before flipping switches and backing away from the warship before her. "I'll see you in a week." she said, smiling, then closed the link and entered slip stream.

Watching as the Eureka Maru left the system, Dylan smiled. It had been a long time since he'd had the entire ship to himself. In fact, even back in the old Commonwealth days he'd only had the entire ship to himself a couple of times. It was nice, knowing that his crew was at ease and that he could sit back and relax, and not worry about a system breaking down because Harper dislocated it, or having to worry about anything else for that matter.

"Where would you like to go next Captain?" Andromeda asked, breaking him away from his thoughts.

"Anywhere but here." Dylan said, the slipstream controls coming up to him. Typing in one of Andromeda's suggested destinations, he watched as the slipstream portal opened once again. There was a swift tug on the hull of the starship before it was pulled in, and within ten point eight seconds, they were out again, in a new, slightly larger, system.

As the ship steadied itself out of the slipstream and into the open space, Dylan relaxed. He was alone on his ship for the next week, and he was free to do as pleased; and all he wanted to do was find some remote little chunk of space to situate Andromeda in, crawl into his soft, fluffy bed, and sleep for a complete 24 hours without any interruption. No code blues, no enemy ships appearing out of no where and opening fire, no conspiracies, just absolute calm.

While he thought about all the things he could do, Dylan failed to notice signs of something going wrong around him. At first some consoles around him seemed to flicker on and off, but then even the Andromeda's AI's visual began to be replaced by her old versions until all three screens just went black. All of this went unseen to him until the lights on the deck went out around him and the main door behind him opened.

Giving into instinct, he grabbed his force lance and spun around aiming, ready to shoot any intruder that would dare disrupt his peace, but no one was there. The door way was empty as was the corridor. Letting himself believe it was a simple glitch that he could fix within an hours time, he deactivated his force lance and returned it to its holster while he slowly began to turn around, only to be shocked again.

Rommie stood off to his right looking fairly beat up and skittish. She wore cargo's he'd never seen on her before and a plain grey shirt, and a sliver of skin was missing from her collar, exposing a small, flashing red light and some silver machinery.

"Rommie?" he said uncertainly. "What are you doing here, and what happen to you?"

"Dylan." she said, and it seemed like she had just realized he was there. "Dylan, I, I need you to do something for me."

"Sure." he said instantly. "But what's wrong?"

"I need you to promise me that you'll do something." she said quickly, ignoring his question.

"What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to activate your close range tracking beacon. The prototype the Commonwealth installed in your neck, beside the implanted com device." she said quickly, robotically, leaving no room for questions though Dylan still got one in anyways.

"Why Rommie? What's wrong?"

"Promise me you'll do it." she said again, ignoring his question. He was starting to get annoyed and a sinking feeling in the pit of his being. Rommie wasn't being normal. She wasn't answering his questions. Something was seriously off.

"Tell me what's wrong."

"Promise me you'll do it."

"Tell me what's wrong Rommie."

"Promise me you'll do it."

"Tell me what's wrong Rommie, now." he said, making sure it would sound like an order.

"Promise me."

Dylan paused, looking into the androids dark eyes. What was wrong with her? Why was she asking this of him? She was right in front of him and they were both safely inside the ship, right in front of each other.

"I promise." he said, watching as a small smile lifted her mouth. "Now tell me, what's wrong?"

The smile quickly disappeared before she answered, and what she did, Dylan felt like someone had grabbed his soul and ripped it from him before he felt forcibly pulled backwards into one the of the bulkheads, his entire body feeling like it was being hit with tiny needles.

"You're about to find out."


"Hey!" Harper said, watching as the bigger man slammed the door and locked it. "I could sue you for that! That's called abuse!"

The guard snorted and turned away from the yelling blond boy to take up his post in front of a metal door.

"Harper!" Beka hissed, her cell directly across from his. "Shut up before he decides to shut you up!"

"Like he'd dare." Harper said, sending a glare through the uneven and patched bars to the big man at the door.

"Harper, relax." Trace said calmly, he own personal cell beside Beka's. "Perhaps you might want to lie down and relax a bit."

"Lie down and relax?" he quoted, raising an eyebrow. "Gee, thanks Trance, maybe I'll do that." he said sarcastically, promptly moving against his wall to face her in her cell. Closing his eyes for a few moments and taking exaggerated deep breaths, he slowly slid down the wall. Then, a moment later he sprang back up again and sarcastically quipped, "Yeah, no, didn't work."

"She's right Harper, you need to relax." Beka said dejectedly, sitting back against the bars of her cell that faced the little man and ever vigilant guard.

"But we have to get back to Andromeda Beka!" Harper protested, waving his arms for emphases. "She's alone with those idiots, and if they don't keep their mouths shut, she might just kill them."

"So we have to help her." Trance said, finishing off his train of thought.

"Exactly, which is why you need to shut up." Beka finished, cracking a few spots in her back.


"What, exactly, are those men doing on your ship self AI?" commander Selore asked, green eyes glaring from the image of the AI's holograph to the statistics his own ship was showing him. The warship before him was very well fifteen times bigger then his own ship - and his ship was the largest the systems defense forces had.

"Nothing that benefits me I can assure you." the hologram replied, he voice slightly more - human - then what he believed was the computers direct voice. "Now, if you don't mind giving me back the rest of my crew, we will more then gladly be on our way momentarily."

Selore raised his eye brows at that. Usually they said right away, not momentarily. He most certainly did not like the way the warship said the sentence.

"I'm sorry, but they were trying to infiltrate the planets atmosphere, and that I can't allow." he said firmly, watching the holograms face for any facial changes. None occurred. "You were assisting them in said crime, so you shall be trialed as they will be."

"I'm sorry, but I cannot allow that to happen." the direct AI said, her voice most definitely more refined and robotic, and very intimidating as it not only came from the communication link, but also from throughout the deck. "Now, you will give me my crew members, or at the top of the next hour, I will deploy drones, and I will use force to retrieve them." she said, the hologram saying one last thing before the warship cut the link itself.

"Have a nice day."


"I'm terribly sorry, but no one in the city has seen him." Raki said, standing beside Rhade with Rommie a few steps ahead, just outside of the infirmary.

"It's alright, we'll find him." Rhade said, nodding his head towards Rommie. "I think she's found his foot prints."

"She can do that?" Raki asked, amazed. He was an android, but could only do a limited amount of things. "How?"

Rhade shrugged slightly, watching as Rommie took four more long strides forwards, stopping at a junction. She looked left and right, before looking down by her feet again. Before her eyes she saw Dylan's foot print lined in green light, all others in blue. Here, he seemed to have stopped for a moment, stepping right a few feet, then returning and going left before coming back and going straight ahead. What was he thinking of doing?

"He broke his ankle." Rommie said, attracting their attention. "He'd only been my captain for about, three years, when we were sent to protect an over lord's daughter for a week. The over lord was trying to peacefully settle an old civil war that was just starting to cool off, and didn't want the Commonwealth to come in and completely take charge, but he didn't want things to go wrong and his only daughter to get hurt.

"So, she and Dylan went off into the mountains. There was a rock slide, and if Dylan had not pushed her out of the way, breaking his own ankle, she would have been killed. Both she and the over lord were grateful, letting us stay for a few weeks so his ankle could heal before going home, and they even updated some of my medical systems. He's favored putting slightly more weight on the uninjured ankle, the right one, since. Being a Heavy Worlder, it's not that much difference, but it separates his foot prints from anyone else's." she finished, walking down the hall some more, making sure she stepped directly in his footprints.

"He seems like quite the hero." Raki said, shocked by the story of bravery.

"Captain Hunt always has been the hero." Rhade said lightly, jogging to keep up when Rommie upped her pace, throwing the front doors open and walking outside.

"Oh no." he heard her say as she knelt down in the short grass, eyes shifting from before her, going all the way out to the tree line.

"What is it?" he asked, standing beside her, wishing he could she what she was obviously seeing, bad news.

"He went out to the tree line." she said, standing. Grabbing his wrist lightly, she traced his path. "He wasn't alone either."


"Did - did you just threaten him!" Duong asked, slamming his hands on the console's edge, the only thing that separated him and the massive ships holographic carbon copy.

"I'm a warship - I don't threaten people. I make simple statements and wait for them to either seal their fate - or cooperate." Holo-Rommie said, not turning her head to face him or any of the other crew men as they stared openly at her, eyes wide and jaws dropped.

"He could very well just decide that you don't matter and kill off the final people in your crew!" Duong exclaimed, shocked and astounded.

"That's something he cannot do." Andromeda said confidently. "He's a commander, commanders have codes. Codes demand respect. He knows this."

"Then you think he'll call your bluff?" Oliviera asked, taking a step towards the main consol, where the hologram stood regally.

"What bluff?" Andromeda asked, raising an inquiring eyebrow.

"About you blowing him up." Mathers elaborated, saying it like it was the most obvious answer. But Andromeda only looked at them again, a strangely questioning yet slightly amused spark in her eyes. To say it was unsettling to them would be doing the look injustice.

"What bluff?"


"So Trance, what do you see in our near future?" Harper asked, decidedly giving up on trying to complain, annoy the guard, throwing small pebbles at the aforementioned guard, and trying to get Beka to talk. She had zoned out and fallen asleep awhile ago.

"You'll see soon enough." Trance said mysteriously, smiling at the little man.

At the front of the chamber that held their cells, the guard that hadn't moved since he threw them into their cells seemed to shift. He shifted again, a low groan escaping the metal chair. A few moments later, inside her cell, Trance stood up. Lifting her gold hand to the odd bars, her palm started to glow, and the bar slowly melted into a soft, bronze colored liquid on the dark floor.

Harper immediately jumped up, eyes wide, practically twitching to get out of his own cell. Trance saw this and smiled, first melting Beka's bars so she could come through, the blonde already awake.

Once they were all free, and past the snoring guard, they stalked off towards their stolen ship, being as silent as they possibly could manage.


He woke up in a dusty room. There was barely any light, and what light was coming through was orange, meaning it must have been somewhere in the evening.

His body was sore, and he still felt as though millions of needles were puncturing every square inch of flesh and muscle he had, but at least he knew that where he was now was real, and not the illusion of being on his ship where he was warm, and where he felt safe; home.

It was odd. He knew he thought he was there, and there was a voice in his head that he was still hearing, but he couldn't decipher what it was trying to tell him. What it wanted of him. What he felt he needed to do right away.

Either he was hit in the head very hard, or the drug was still working against him.

A few feet away from where he lay, a door seemed to open. More orange light flew through the opening in the darkness, and he quickly shielded his eyes from it.

"Good, you are awake." a heavily accented voice said, and he almost didn't catch what the mysterious silhouette said. "You will be fed soon human, and then brought to the high council. Be ready." and with that, the being left, leaving him back in the musty room, alone, and confused.


Hello! I've updated, and it didn't take me a year. Nearly - but not a full year.

I feel terrible for not updating this sooner - sooo much sooner, but I've been busy. Then, when I have sat down to write, it just never seemed to come out right. So, my guilt finally got the best of me, and I forced this out. I'm not exactly one hundred percent happy with this chapter, but I've put it out anyways. I hope you're all still willing to read my work after this time, and that you enjoyed this chapter.

Have a great night, and I hope to get a review from someone. Even a flame would be nice.

(Yes, I feel that bad.)

(New chapter is in the works, but I don't know when it will be out, so please don't get excited or anxious. Let's just put it this way -- This story has not been abandoned.)

-Kasumi